Hydra dmg. Hiow good can it get?

[Sirbub]

Hiya all.

I wanted to ask the ppl that have used Hydra to some extent. I am thinking about making a hydra sorc and was woundering what kind of damage that the hydra could do with mabe 1 or 2 max synergies. I know that the hydra damage is 135-161 at 20 with no synergies but with hell/realm monsters in mind its far for a good skill for those type of monsters (In my apinion) as apposed to mabe a fireball or meteor skill with the same points spent. This sorc with be played onlline on the realms hell in mind. Thx for the help in advance.


Sirbub

[Doc]

Hiya all.

  I wanted to ask the ppl that have used Hydra to some extent.  I am thinking about making a hydra sorc and was woundering what kind of damage that the hydra could do with mabe 1 or 2 max synergies.  I know that the hydra damage is 135-161 at 20 with no synergies but with hell/realm monsters in mind its far for a good skill for those type of monsters (In my apinion) as apposed to mabe a fireball or meteor skill with the same points spent.  This sorc with be played onlline on the realms hell in mind.  Thx for the help in advance.
Sirbub
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Hydra is no Meteor or Firewall.

That said, Hydra is supremely powerful, but only in the hands of a highly skilled and smart driver. It can, at times, be a lot more powerful than Meteor... Not in the damage numbers, but in how it is used. Hydra is fire and forget. It is a scout, a steady damage dealer, a ranged artillery piece, and a source for choke point massacres. It is not an instakill spell, it is not one shot death. It is a source of safety. It can fire arround corners and kill enemies that you will never see. It toasts gloams and things like black souls in relative safety. It allows you to safely kill all act end bosses with out ever once looking at any of them if you are skilled.

Hydra is, in the end, what you make of it. In the hands of a thoughtful imaginative well skilled player, Hydra is a wonder to behold.

[whathuh]

With max synergies (firebolt/ball), it does 284 - 337 damage and lasts 10 seconds. This works wonders on meph, as you can have 5 hyds active at the same time (2 second cast delay) each doing 311 *.75 damage (hes resistant in hell, i think 75%). Its definately a slow killer.

Max your fire mastery and you're in business, though. 749 - 888 damage for 80 skill points plus prereq. Not a Blizzard by any means, but still good. Add in frozen orb to multiskill (or glacial spike to freeze them near a hydra) and I think you have a decent sorc. Course, if you are going to max your fireball/mast/bolt, fireball is going to be another spamming spell.

I suggest the glacial spike combo with a very fast cast (think either 63% or 105% fcr). Cast a hydra, freeze and watch em burn! You just need the mana to support 10 mana every 8-9 frames.

[Doc]

With max synergies (firebolt/ball), it does  284 - 337 damage and lasts 10 seconds.  This works wonders on meph, as you can have 5 hyds active at the same time (2 second cast delay) each doing 311 *.75 damage (hes resistant in hell, i think 75%).  Its definately a slow killer. 

Max your fire mastery and you're in business, though.  749 - 888 damage for 80 skill points plus prereq.  Not a Blizzard by any means, but still good.  Add in frozen orb to multiskill (or glacial spike to freeze them near a hydra) and I think you have a decent sorc.  Course, if you are going to max your fireball/mast/bolt, fireball is going to be another spamming spell.

I suggest the glacial spike combo with a very fast cast (think either 63% or 105% fcr).  Cast a hydra, freeze and watch em burn!  You just need the mana to support 10 mana every 8-9 frames.
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Actually, I am a strong advocate of Ice Blast. It only damages a single target, but, does more damage and has a better freeze time. High level Ice Blast is absolutely deadly. As a bonus, the missile travels faster than a Glacial Spike. You can infact, max Ice Blast before you get to level 30 and get your Hydras. It has an easy to manage mana cost. It will blast through normal quite well, and, past level 26 or 27, (I forget) it starts really ramping up on the damage. It does freeze for several seconds in Hell, which is handy, as it will keep monsters still so Hydras do not miss. As an added bonus, the pubbies will be utterly baffled over how you are able to kill so quickly with a level 6 skill, and will most likely call you "nOOb" or whatever it is pubbies say when their little minds can't compute.

Hydras do considerable damage... Far more than mere numbers might hint at. It's easy to be deceived at the seemingly low damage... But Hydras spit out an awful lot of firebolts at a fairly good rate of speed. For things that are somewhat or highly fire resistant, I highly recommend giving your merc something that causes open wounds, to kill any regeneration between firebolts, as it will allow your Hydras to produce a steady flow of damage.

[whathuh]

Actually, I am a strong advocate of Ice Blast.
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I'm relying on freezing multiple creatures at a time, not damaging them. Ice Blast will work wonders, I'm sure, but an slvl 1 glacial spike should work fine and freeze a group of monsters. Of course, a better source of damage really would be to use meteor and watch them helplessly burn.

In terms of damage, a fully synergised ice blast does 4000 damage. But that's with frozen orb and blizzard maxed. The problem is, again, it only hits one person. And 4000 damage is not enough for a multi hit kill. 40 points invested with a level 32 skill does 2000, not enough for my taste. Awful mana cost too. But I think I may try it one day. Sounds like fun, but I think I would like to make a monk or a singer barb first.

[Casperi]

One thing to remember is the damage listed is per bolt. So for example if you use synergy/mastery to get the damage up to 500 that doesn't sound like much in hell mode. But figure you can have 5 Hydras going at a time, and each shoots maybe 10 bolts each - that is 25,000 fire damage over 10 seconds. Not too bad. Plus you have the advantage of safety: scouting and damaging things way offscreen.

[Fragbait]

Hi!

I think your calculations are a bit odd.
When using the skill-calc of www.indiablo.de,

[I just looked at the AS, and they list *135-161* as damage for a vanilla lvl 20 hydra, so my calculations may still be a bit off]

I get the following values:

Hydra lvl 20, 129-153 dam.
Firebolt lvl 20, +60% dam.
Fireball lvl 20, +60% dam.

Fire Mastery lvl 20, +163% to the whole damage calculated before,
adds up to: 749-888 fire damage (per shot of one of the three heads of Hydra)

Or even better (with +6 to skills, for example):

Hydra lvl 26, 188- 218 dam.
Firebolt lvl 20, +60% dam.
Fireball lvl 20, +60% dam.

Fire Mastery lvl 26, +205% to the whole damage calculated before,
adds up to: 1264-1466 fire damage (per shot of one of the three heads of Hydra)

And since you can have four hydras with three heads coevally (well, actually five, but the duration of five existing hydras isn't exactly 2 seconds then - I guess rather 1 - and with running around, five are rather difficult to keep up, so let's compute with four)
that adds up to 4*3*(~1365) = 16380 per spit they make.
I don't know exactly how often they spit, but if we assume 2 times per second, then that is 16380*2 = 32760 fire damage per second.
Now if we assume that there's the non-ideal case that there are several monsters between which the damage is divided, and not every bolt hits:

50% of the bolts hit:
-------------------------
5 monsters:
16380/5 = 3276 fire damage per monster and second.
10 monsters:
16380/10 = 1638 fire damage per monster and second.

25% of the bolts hit:
-------------------------
5 monsters:
8190/5 = 1638 fire damage per monster per second.
10 monsters:
8190/10 = 819 fire damage per monster per second.

Conclusion:
The more monsters are targeted, and the more they move, the less efficient Hydra is. But if there are <5 monsters, and they don't run around too frantically, Hydra is a hell of a killer!
In every case, the statements concerning the tactical value of Hydra are seconded once more.

Greetings, Fragbait

[whathuh]

Conclusion:
The more monsters are targeted, and the more they move, the less efficient Hydra is. But if there are <5 monsters, and they don't run around too frantically, Hydra is a hell of a killer!
In every case, the statements concerning the tactical value of Hydra are seconded once more.
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First, thank's for correcting me. All the good d2 sites are in a language I don't understand, so I must have had some +skills in there somewhere or something.

Next off, if there are <5 monsters that don't run around too franticaly, hydra is not always a hell of a killer. Unlike normal firebolt, Hydra is limited by its very own AI, and since all 3 heads will probably hit different people, you have to take into account monster regeneration and massive fire resists on most monsters. I originally had some technical information to back it up, but that was scrapped because I know people at the Lurker Lounge are generally above average people and know what I'm talking about.

The damage from hydra increases with <5, but it is also decreased by the regeneration, so I think that hydra is actually better as a sniper and as a pseudo meteor. If you use hydra on mephisto with the moat trick, all the bolts will usually hit, so you have a MAJOR damage inflictor there.